Hello, I’m Destiny Chinnici. I’m a 27 year old woman with CHARGE syndrome, and I don’t allow my vision and hearing issues to stop me. I was diagnosed with CHARGE Syndrome right at birth, which was a rarity in 1993. When I was in elementary school, the NYC school district was running an event called adaptive olympics, I managed to win a silver medal each year despite my balance issues. After moving to NJ in 2002-2004 I played soccer in our township and won several trophies and a medal. It wasn’t until middle school when I realized that I enjoy cooking, and it really kicked off when I was in high school. I also learned a lot about food safety during cooking class. During that time, I helped with donating money to UNICEF by asking around the school every day. I collected so much money that my little donation box started to overflow and fall apart a bit. The teacher who ran the Student Council was impressed by the amount of money I collected.
After high school, I went to a special service school run by my county where I started training for a job. After finishing school, I worked in my local hospital’s kitchen as a kitchen aide. While there I kept the salad bar clean and stocked during lunch, and helped get the cafeteria ready for lunch. I use a transportation system for those with disabilities run by the major statewide transportation company. It gives me independence and freedom to go anywhere around my county.
In 2016-2018 I was hired by a company who hired people with special needs to help people walk their dogs. It was fun and I got to meet some great dogs. Me and a job coach underestimated the size of a block due to us trying to avoid another dog making our client’s dog anxious, but we got her home safely without going overtime at the end. The company went out of business in 2018 due to financial issues and clients dropping out for various reasons. Now during COVID and can’t work in the hospital for health reasons, I’m working on preparing and moving onto my future to be an artist.
